


A Series of Questions

by thursjournal



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Amnesia, Gen, Temporary Amnesia, Tumblr: letswritesherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-16
Updated: 2014-08-16
Packaged: 2018-02-13 10:20:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2147064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thursjournal/pseuds/thursjournal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a locked door in Sherlock's mind palace and he's frantically trying to open it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Series of Questions

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Let's Write Sherlock Challenge 15: Trope Bingo. This is the Amnesia square because it's one of my favorite fic tropes. Not betaed or britpicked so I apologize for any errors.

Sherlock sat in his chair by the fireplace with his fingers steepled under his chin. Something had roused him from his thoughts, and he looked through the dark room at the glowing fire. What had he been thinking about? He couldn’t remember. A light rustle of paper drew his attention, and Sherlock turned his head to see John sitting in the chair (his chair) opposite. 

“John?” Sherlock asked quizzically

John sighed in response but didn’t look up from his paperback novel.

“Why are you here?” Sherlock asked, leaning forward in his chair.

“Keeping an eye on you.” John turned another page without looking up.

“What for?” 

“You took a nasty bump on the head. Just making sure you don’t keel over while no one’s looking.” John still did not look up. He seemed outwardly unperturbed, but something about the set of his shoulders and the tension around his eyes put Sherlock on edge. 

“Was I working on a case? Is that why I can’t remember…” Sherlock struggled to pin down exactly what he didn’t know. He knew where he was, and who he was, and who John was, but he couldn’t remember what he had done that day. Or the day before. What was the last thing he could remember with certainty? Magnussen. The plane. An awkwardly short blessedly short exile. John on the tarmac with eyes shining. Mary with her face turned away and eyes cast down. “Where’s Mary??” Sherlock asked suddenly. 

John gritted his teeth and closed the book. “She’s gone.”

Gone? “Gone where? What happened? Is she alright? Are YOU alright?” His series of unanswered questions seemed to needle John who stood abruptly and walked towards the kitchen. “Tea?” he asked. 

Sherlock’s mind was racing down blind hallways in his mind palace and his hands trembled where they gripped the arms of his chair. Think. THINK. Something was wrong. Something had gone wrong. Something with a case. And Mary. He’d been injured. He looked over sharply at John, searching, assessing. A few abrasions on his knuckles and a bruise starting to show above his left eye. John was on the case with him. The case with Mary. The case about Mary? In his mind palace Sherlock stood outside a locked door, frantically turning the knob. Why wouldn’t John tell him? Why would he withhold information, when he should clearly see how distressing it was for Sherlock to be un-moored from the one thing that mattered to him. From his mind. 

“John…” He started out, his tone frustrated and angry and more than a little frightened. 

“No.” John’s voice sounded like warning thunder. He turned and stood behind his chair, leaning forward to grip the top. Still looking down he shook his head, his mouth a thin line. “Just...leave it, alright? Please. I can’t do this again.”

Sherlock sat in stunned silence. His wide eyes gradually settled behind a stony mask and Sherlock stood, straightening his suit jacket and walking past John towards the bedroom. 

“No.” This time John’s voice sounded like a hard day’s work, “You can’t go to sleep yet. Concussion.” He reached over and took Sherlock by the elbow and turned him around, guiding him back to his chair. Sherlock looked at John’s hand on his elbow with confusion and a tiny note of alarm. He jerked his arm away slightly and threw himself down in the chair. The circles under John’s eyes looked like more locked doors. 

“Why…” Sherlock thought of a dozen options.  
Why are you here?  
Why aren’t you at home with your wife?  
Why isn’t your wife here, she’s a nurse after all?  
Why didn’t you just leave me at the hospital?  
Why didn’t you let Mycroft do what he wanted?  
Why  
Why  
Why do you look like that?

But Sherlock realized that all the questions had one thing in common. His face twisted ever so slightly in pain and then turned resolute.

“What have I done?”

A tired smile quirked the corner of John’s mouth as he looked at Sherlock for the first time, “That’s a new one.”

Sherlock felt like throwing himself at the locked door in his mind palace until it opened or he broke himself to pieces. He took a (hopefully) steadying breath. Just like Baskerville. He’d figure it out, even without his full senses. He would just have to compensate. Use the other tools at his disposal. His mind felt like the old red toolbox this father kept in the shed, where the hinges squealed in protest and the depths were full of rusty tools that were exactly not the thing you needed. He rummaged through, discarding each thought with increasing frustration. Something was missing from the toolbox. His father was always chastising him for not putting the tools back. “Then you’ll never be able to find it when you need it.” Oh how he’d hated standing in the stifling heat of the shed and listening to that lecture thinking one day he’d have his own tools and he’d leave them wherever he damn well pleased he’d leave them on the sidewalk and on the stairs and the kitchen table and in chairs - 

Sherlock looked up sharply at John sitting in the chair opposite. “John, I… I need your help.”

John sat back in his chair, his eyebrows raised in surprise. “Alright,” he said cautiously. 

Sherlock spoke slowly, “You said you can’t do this ‘again’ and ‘that’s a new one,’ have I been asking you questions that I don’t remember asking?”

A smile broke John’s face into a warm glow. “Amazing.” He shook his head, still smiling, “I can’t believe you worked that out. Yes, as a side effect of your concussion you have minor short term memory loss. You don’t remember how you were injured and you ask generally the same series of questions every 30-45 minutes.”

Sherlock opened his mouth to ask how many times he’d been through the series of questions but stopped. John looked so relieved that he wanted to wrap himself up in the small victory. OH! He shot up from the chair and dashed to the desk, rifling through the mess and coming up with a blank sheet of paper and a pen. He started writing frantically across the top of the page. John joined him, peering around his shoulder with a broadening smile. 

“What are the questions?” Sherlock demanded. He wrote each one down in turn along with a short answer. At the end of the list he turned to John, “Any additional suggestions?”

“Yeah, you’re out of milk,” he said teasingly. 

Sherlock took on a scornful look, “I hardly think it advisable to send a patient with short term memory loss out to the shops in the middle of the night, Doctor.” 

“Suit yourself,” John shrugged. But he settled into his chair and took up his book without the tension he’d been wearing before. Sherlock looked at him closely for several seconds, then scribbled a final note and sat down in the chair opposite. He gripped the sheet of paper in his right hand while he stared into the fire. Waiting. 

***

Sherlock’s head snapped up, startled. He must have fallen asleep in his chair but his confusion only increased when he noticed John sitting across from him quietly reading a book and drinking tea. 

“John?” he asked, “What are you doing here?”

John didn’t look up from his book, “Read your note.”

Sherlock was surprised to find he was in fact holding a slightly wrinkled sheet of paper covered with his own handwriting. He read it quickly and started to ask a question but thought better of it. He reread the note a second and third time. He stared into the fire until his breaths came more calmly and his pulse slowed to a reasonable rate. He stood up, moving to the window slowly and picking up the violin. He thought for several seconds and then put the bow to strings, filling the flat with a lilting Scottish reel. 

John looked up from his book with his eyes smiling, “that’s a new one.”

Sherlock nodded his head slightly as he continued to play. John turned back to his book, but not before quietly whispering, 

“You’re welcome.”


End file.
